Phased Retirement Can Preserve Boomers’ Knowledge: GAO

In a report
to the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging, the Government Accountability
Office (GAO) recommends that employers adopt phased retirement programs, so
that they won't negatively affect the knowledge and experience of Baby Boomers.
However, only 15% of workers between the ages of 61 and 66 are semi-retired,
according to the GAO.

The GAO also reviewed a 2016 Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)
survey, that found only 5% of its membership base offered a formal phased
retirement program. However, 11% offered an informal phased retirement program.
Among large employers, those with 2,500 to 9,999 workers, 16% offered a formal
phased retirement program.

“Nine of 16 experts GAO interviewed explained that industries with skilled
workers or labor shortages are motivated to offer phased retirement because
their workers are hard to replace,” GAO says. Consulting, education,
government, utilities and high-tech are among the industries most likely to
offer phased retirement, according to the GAO. “While not all researchers
agree, it has been suggested by some that as the population ages and the number
of Baby Boomers leaving the labor force increases, there could be a loss of
economic productivity. The availability of phased retirement, by extending the
labor force participation, has the potential to provide options that would be
beneficial both to the older workers and the overall economy.”

Reasons why
employers do not offer phased retirement programs include the belief that older
workers are less productive and have more expensive health care costs, according to the
GAO. Other employers are concerned about regulatory complexities involving
federal tax and age discrimination laws.

Among those that do offer phased retirement said
they did so to enable knowledge transfer and to manage their workforce more
capably.

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